


Self-Preservation

by IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3226772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow/pseuds/IfMulderCouldSeeMeNow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal hears the lock of his back door, tumblers twirling as a key is inserted and twisted. He hadn’t expected her. She was in hiding. He hopes she has taken the proper precautions to not be noticed, but he can’t help the anger that stirs. She’s put them in jeopardy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self-Preservation

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Takes place in season 2, after Hannibal almost gets murdered.

Hannibal hears the lock of his back door, tumblers twirling as a key is inserted and twisted. He hadn’t expected her. She was in hiding. He hopes she has taken the proper precautions to not be noticed, but he can’t help the anger that stirs. She’s put them in jeopardy.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he says as heels click up the stairs to his bedroom. There is a brief pause before the distinct sound of her steps continues. She doesn’t knock before sliding the heavy oak door completely open, a small gasp emanating from her chest when she sees him.

He looked positively dreadful. Keeping up with this charade had taken a toll on his body. It couldn’t help that the anniversary of his sister’s death was approaching. She removes her shoes immediately, her coat discarded at the door. He feels her hands press into the bed and looks over- her positively tiny form climbing into his bed. Hand. Knee. Hand. Knee. In. She’s sitting next to him, her practiced eye searching him for surface damage.  

“I turned myself into Jack Crawford. I needed to test Will Graham’s allegiance. He will betray you,” she states with a practiced voice, the same voice she used to tell patient’s families that she was forcefully placing them in a mental facility. His skin is already prickled when she finishes her statement, her hands dancing over his skin-cataloging new scars. “He is not a replacement for Mischa.”

“You have taken unnecessary risks,” he growls, grabbing her forearm harshly and twisting it. She hisses under his touch and his brows quirk in confusion. He didn’t intend to hurt her this time. His fingers relax, and he looks at her with curious eyes, sliding up the sleeves of her red blouse. Purple splotched bruises have already begun to form on her porcelain skin. He receives the answers in her eyes, but she shakes her arm from him, unhappy that he’s discovered her lie. She hadn’t gone to Jack willingly. “He found the cabin,” he states clearly, feeling idiocy rise like bile in his throat.

“The police he sent weren’t necessarily the gentlest officers,” she finishes, deciding to breeze over the topic. She didn’t want to talk about 24 hours of interrogation. Bedelia didn’t need to discuss the inevitable- they would come for her again, this time with unsealed records and her half-truths would no longer hold water.

 “I needed to see the results of your foolishness myself.” Her voice is cold as her ice-blue eyes as she briefly looks at his other arm. The gashes are long and deep, although healing and he knows what she’s thinking. _You could have died. This wasn’t a part of the plan. Will Graham will kill you next time. I can’t stand you. I hate you. What have you done to me?_ He can smell her perfume; her desire. She’s missed him. Her eyes flitter around the room, and he knows she’s looking for something to say. Most of their relationship is based on well-placed pauses and glances but he can’t take the way she looks around, inquisitive and yet so certain. She looks, happy? He isn’t sure. They’ve argued over Will Graham and Abigail Hobbs. Jack Crawford and Alana Bloom. He doesn’t know why her skin seems to glow as she reaches out and gently takes his hand in hers. “Your folly is how they will catch you, Hannibal.”

 “Why did you really come, Bedelia?” he asks, frustrated. She would have been safe if she’d stayed away. She should have gotten on her plane and jetted off, leaving him to his work. But she hadn’t. He knows the clinical detachment from her attack will endure the future questions Jack will pester her with. Her attack is merely a patient’s history in black and white; not her own past. She is not a liability to him but her eagerness to take liberties and peel back his person-suit is disturbing. He wants her to leave before she pins him under her microscopic stare. “I was being taken ca-“

“I’m well aware of the company you keep, Hannibal,” she sneers with unveiled jealousy. The room smelt of Dr. Bloom, and although she attempted to ignore it when she examined his almost crucifixion, it now was inescapable. He wouldn’t have needed the alibi of her warm body if he had taken her advice. “The tattler has wonderful descriptions of your conquests.” His lip quirks and she knows he’s planning to say something snide.

“You risked our exposure to seek an apology,” he laughs humorlessly “How juvenile.” Her eyes are steely and cold and he watches her shimmy from his large, plush bed, elegance lost, and stride to the handbag she’d set on a chair.

“I received notification from Marcos today,” she begins, pulling papers from her large Prada bag. Hannibal feels his stomach turn and knows he has made a mistake. Walking back to his bed, she pauses, stepping into her shoes. Bedelia drops the passports received from her source on the bed, into the imprint of where her body sat just moments before. He opens the first book to see Will Graham’s eyes staring back at him, and can’t believe she’d actually gone through with it. She’s proven her loyalty countless times and he feels guilty for his trust in Will Graham. He’d nearly killed her twice because of loyalty, and he finally begins to realize the “folly” she’s been referring to for months.  “And in the future, please spare me half-baked psychoanalyses,” she pauses, stirring him out of his reverie. “Your apologies are similar to your meaningless claims of protectiveness and attempted companionship. I would never seek something so worthless.”

“Bedelia,” he calls, as her hand fiercely grips the doorknob. Her words stung and he knows that he hurt her again. He hadn’t meant to; not really. She turns and fixes him with a piercing reptilian stare.

“You came to my home to dispose of me not long ago, Hannibal. Did you honestly think this relationship was anything but self-preservation?”

The heavy oak door closes and her heels click down the steps. He doesn’t follow. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm debating on whether to end this or make it a series that spans past series 2. Let me know what your thoughts are! :)


End file.
